A Medicare proposal to test new ways of paying for chemotherapy and
other drugs given in a doctor's office has sparked a furious battle, and
cancer doctors are demanding that the Obama administration scrap the
experiment. The question isn't whether those drugs are fairly priced, but whether
Medicare's current payment policy encourages doctors to prescribe the
costliest medications so they can make more money.
Injected and infused drugs for such conditions as macular degeneration,
rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease are also affected.
Medicare now pays doctors and hospital outpatient clinics the average
sales price of a drug, plus a 6 percent add-on, somewhat reduced by
federal budget cuts. Naturally, 6 percent of a $15,000 drug is more than
6 percent of a $3,000 drug. But does that influence doctors' decisions,
raising costs for the government as well as those on Medicare?
Medicare officials seem to think so.
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